Last Tuesday--June 16th to be exact--Nail A College Drop Out turned four! Oh how they grow up so fast. *tears* So obviously, because this is a nail art blog, I've decided to celebrate with what else? Nail art.

This li'l celebratory mani has a sprinkle of everything. There's a gradient, some water marbling, a hint of spectraflare, and tad bit of freehand.

If the choice for the color scheme of this maniucure looks familiar, you've probably seen this mani from last summer, or maybe you've taken a look at the blog itself.

This time around, I've axed the black and white glitter, then added some spectraflare. And because I can't never have enough neon, I had to through Urban Outfiters Gotta Have It in the mix as well.

A video posted by Nail A College Drop Out (@ dropoutnails) on Jun 16, 2015 at 8:16pm PDT

If you haven't already noticed, this shade is pretty sheer; even at three coats--which is shown throughout this post. In fact, I almost gave up completely on this lacquer.

The wear time on this polish is pretty impressive. I wore it for six days with no additional tip wear. I know, "additional tip wear." I say that because within an hour the polish shrank back from my tips a little bit.

My usual base/top coat combination is Duri Rejuvacote & Dazzle Dry Quick Dry Top Coat, which was what I used for this mani.

Maybe this polish doesn't play well with my go to base/top combo. Maybe thermals in general don't go with this combo. At this point I haven't done enough testing either way to find out for sure.

Nothing to Disclose
Oh Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue, oh the original Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue. Awhile back the folks over at Sally Hansen decided to take a beautiful cornflower blue créme and change it to something akin to a royal blue shimmer--and no, they didn't even change the name! *le sigh*

I like this polish about as much as I like any opaque lacquer with a créme finish, but this lacquer has quite the fandom. (Can one specific polish even have a fandom?) Lacqueristas were pretty hard core about this and have been hunting drugstores and eBay auctions alike to find the original formula.

So today, I'm doing a small comparison post to try and find some dupes.

Again, none are exact dupes for the beloved OG Pacific Blue. The difference between Pacific Blue are small but more noticeable in real life, but let's be real for a moment. Just buy any of the lacquers listed here to fill the void.

5/11/2016 Update:

Four season later, Rite Aids near me are finally stocking Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's collection from Fall 2015. What did I do? Snatch up Boho Blue thinking I'd found a dupe for--you guessed it--the OG Pacific Blue. To make a short story shorter, it was a bust.

Press Sample
A lil while ago I did some nail art with Paradise Sun's créme counterpart, Island Fun. So today--as the title suggests--I've got the swatch, review, and a wee bit of nail art for Zoya's Paradise Sun collection.

Mae | Selene | Isa

Oceane | Aphrodite | Genesis

On the nail art front I used nail vinyls to create the mermaid look you see on my index and middle fingers.

How? I started with a base of Genesis and allowed it to dry, laid down some Whats Up Nails vinyls, and sponged on Isa, Oceane, and Selene.

Mae

Mae is your typical magenta metallic polish. It reached full opacity in two easy coats.

Selene

Selene is a gorgeous teal that reached full opacity in two coats. When I first got this collection I didn't expect to like Selene as much as I do. No complaints here.

Isa

Isa is my absolute favorite from this collection. But I love purple so you shouldn't be shocked by that.

My camera could not quite capture this shade as it truly is, it comes off on-screen as more blue than it is purple. Either way the formula was great and only required two coats.

Oceane

Oceane is two coats and pure love. That's all I have to say.

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is more of a jelly than any of the others in Paradise sun. What you see above is three coats and there is still some visible nail line. In real life this shade has more metallic shimmer in it, but my camera and lighting set up just couldn't capture it all. With that being said, Aphrodite is still a very likeable shade.

Genesis

Oh Genesis. You had so much potential. Sure it's a beautiful shimmery white, but it took four coats and it was still streaky. =( I'd pass on this shade if I were you. But if you're so pressed to have it, you could layer it over a more opaque white créme.